With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
October 04, 2004 - 1:28 a.m.
I’ve written a few homages to the opening day, It think this will be my first to the last day of the baseball season.
The last day of the season is one of my favorites. The game usually means nothing, all to often the Mets disappointed those who expected them to be good. So at the last game of the season you have the true fans there, those that love the game. Today was a perfect fall day, the sun was shining and there was just a hint of a nip in the air. The second to last place Mets played the last place Expos, it was perfect.
Today wasn’t just any last day, it was the last game ever played by Todd Zeile. He’s played 15 seasons for about as many teams. He’s been a good but never a great player. He started as a catcher, moved to third base, then to first. He did what he needed to do to keep playing. Before this season he hadn’t caught since 1990, he wanted to catch again before he retired and the Mets let him catch a game earlier this month and he caught again today. There was a ceremony before the game honoring him. He gave a pretty good speech, he started off by saying he was “the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” That’s a direct quote of Lou Gehrig’s famous farewell speech. It is such a self conscious cliché that I appreciated it. He then said even he doesn’t know how many teams he’s played for. It was a good speech all about how much he appreciated how appreciated getting to play baseball.
Though he hasn’t announced his retirement it was almost certainly John Franco’s last game. Franco is my favorite player, he’s been with the team the longest, he’s only three years younger than I am. He has all the team relief pitching records. He is second all-time among major league players in appearances and saves. I’d vote for him for the Hall of Fame in an instant. What I really love about him is the smile on his face when he’s in the Bullpen watching the game and not playing. When it is a good game he’s smiling from ear to ear. You can see how much he loves it. He was a city kid, grew up in Brooklyn as a Met fan. How can I not root for the guy?
Most significantly it was also the last game for the Montreal Expos, next season they are moving to Washington DC. It was fitting they played their last game here, they played their first game at Shea Stadium against the Mets back in 1969. They have been rumored to be leaving Montreal the last few years so their support which was never strong got even weaker. They still had fans though and quite a few showed up at Shea today. There was a group of Expos fans for Plattsburgh New York sitting one section over from me. When the Expos had a little rally going late in the game a larger group of fans started shouting “Lets go Expos!” You have to admire that loyalty. Not that it did them any good, the Expos lost 8-1. The answer to the trivial question, Who made the last out for the Montreal Expos is Endy Chavez. Isn’t that an appropriate name to usher in the end of an era? I missed a great free concert today, Dar Williams and Cherish the Ladies were playing but I don’t regret it. I had such a nice day with Alan at the game. It really is amazing how good going to a game came make me feel. Baseball like music has charms to sooth the savage breast. Oh yes, Alan, he won today’s game and that means he won the season by a single game. I won’t lick my wounds for long, Basketball season starts next month and I’ll win that.
I had some politics I was going to write about but guess what, I’m not. I’m not going to bring down my mood.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile October 04, 2004
